


In Twain - Bonuses and B-Sides

by CatC



Series: In Twain [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-10-04 18:46:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatC/pseuds/CatC
Summary: Wee snippets from the In Twain series, including perspectives other than Emma's and scenes I could not fit into the main story.





	1. Aster

**Author's Note:**

> Why the extra?
> 
> 1\. I write (at least in mental draft) more than makes it onto the page. Much, much more. I am diligent about murdering my darlings, but some of these suckers simply will not stay dead.
> 
> 2\. Sometimes, especially when I'm stuck on something, it helps to change focus for a bit.
> 
> 3\. Since I am mostly writing from one (not perfectly reliable) perspective, it is both fascinating and instructive to get into someone else's head for awhile.
> 
> 4\. This is a chance for me to mess around with POV, tense, and all that writerly stuff. Mental cross-training.
> 
> 5\. Most important: I think you'll get a kick out of this.
> 
> This will be less structured and less edited than the main fic. Word count? Tone consistency? BAH. No rules in this section.
> 
> Feel free to make requests. :)

Aster watches Emma. At least once a day, more often if Mama doesn't need her to watch the littles.

The first four times Emma heard her somehow, even though Aster was doing her very best to be quiet. But now Emma never hears her. This is a puzzle. Aster hates puzzles.

Aster has watched her working, quill moving casually over the parchment. Sometimes Emma's brow furrows, then she gives a small nod, dips the ink and writes more. Late in the day, she will pause and make her neck pop. Emma makes a small pleased grimace when this happens.

Emma does not like the thin clever woman with lighter hair. Aster is glad about this: partly because the thin clever woman has mean eyes. Mostly because it means Emma is real.

Emma also dislikes waiting in lines, two of the fancy people, cold wind, tomatoes in the lamb stew, and being told something she already knows. She has a tight smile and squinty eyes when she pretends to like them.

Aster has watched her eating, elbow to elbow with different people. Often Emma doesn't look at her food as she eats. She seems to be listening. Five times, she ate very quickly and then talked to someone close by. Her brow crinkled as she was about to begin. Emma talked soft then, like she talked to Aster in the dungeon. Probably most of these people haven't cut a throat. Probably.

When she isn't talking soft Emma listens and talks and laughs. Emma laughs different to how Papa did. There aren't knives in there.

Emma reads in the garden every day. First a thin fancy book then a thin cheap one. Aster is sure she could make lots of noise then and wouldn't be heard. Emma's brow stays furrowed the whole time, but everything else is relaxed.

The windows in the cabin don't open and Mama bolts the door. Soon Aster will have solved this problem and she'll see Emma at night.

Aster needs to know if Emma is different then. Aster knows that some people are.


	2. Emma

It was late and duty reassignments swam before my eyes. Why didn’t I have a sensible job? I bet all the soldiers get to finish on time. Or potters. Yes. Clay is much less recalcitrant than paperwork.

     respire respite, despite despair

     Huh?

     there is a thought for you. over here

Quill away. Brace head on hands. Into the memory palace.

I found Cole past the library, on one of the small balconies. The smell of the ocean was strong, revivifying.

“Sit!” he said, hands moving. Excited. Nervous.

I sat at the small table. Oh, it’s identical to those at that little boulangerie on the…

“You didn’t.”

His happy worried face.

“You did!”

I covered my face theatrically and waited.

The smell. He’d copied it from my memories exactly. Warm and yeasty; comfort made physical. My pretend mouth began to salivate.

I uncovered my face and there, utterly perfect, were three small rolls with a dusting of flour on top. A knife, a pat of yellow creamery butter. The berry compote. I knew, _knew_ , that the butter would melt on the warm bread and run down the side of my hand.

I would kiss Cole’s cheek with berry-sweet lips when I was done.

***

“Emma?”

“Hwah?”

Harden repeated a question he’d clearly asked before. “Are. You. Okay.”

“Oh! Yes. Just… drifted off for a moment.”

“It seemed like you went somewhere pleasant.”

“Yeah.” Ocean air and crumbs on a tablecloth. “It was perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Qophia, who wanted fresh-baked bread.
> 
> Writing without expectations or structure is HARD. Clearly I have developed the habit of (over-)thinking about every scene. Everyone knows knows me is shocked by this. Shocked, I say.


	3. Varric

Varric always pretends that he hates invoices. Bills of lading, promissory notes, all the mercantile apparatus.

This is, to put it politely, a complete lie.

A _useful_ lie, to be sure. A lie with many practical applications for a canny trader in goods and information. A lie that he occasionally attempts to feel guilty about during services.

(He's never succeeded.)

People can become attached to their lies. Varric has always known this. It's one of the reasons this lie matters to him.

He loves ledgers for the same reasons he loves books: the attempt to define reality, to imprison it in ink. Most of all he loves the manifold ways both always fail. He is enamoured of the lies that tell a greater truth.

So he has spent a day enjoyably managing accounts and simultaneously enjoying the performance of the lie. Sighing gustily and fishing for pity from anyone who asks what he's doing.

***

To say that Varric's room is well-secured would be something of an understatement.

If asked, he would say it is a necessary measure. His room is his safe-room, after all. He bribes the maids generously to only clean when he is present, and so the variety and general nastiness of his locks and - _other_ \- devices remains unexamined.

But there is the other reason. The one he doesn't look at much.

Dwarves don't dream. But they _do_ wake up trembling and covered in sweat. Sometimes.

Too often.

***

There is a note on his pillowcase.

Why in Andraste's armpit is there a note on his pillowcase?

He picks it up gingerly.

_"What the shit?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @Paradigm_F, who gave me a prompt that I did not use but am still grateful for.


	4. Sera

Sera had a good day.

She always has good days, even if it takes her staying awake for fifty hours and punching a horse. (It's a long story.)

Pleasantly squiffy and yawning, she enters her room.

There is a note on her pillow.

Sera frowns. The handwriting says nothing at all about its author. They could be flippin' anybody, so they're probably a spy.

She reads.

###

Dear Red Jenny,

On the 17th of Justinian, at his estate in the Dales, Germain de Courtenay hunted an elf for sport.

###

The letter continues, detailing specifics of the merchant-king's deeds. Dates. Locations. Witnesses. It is a neatly-ordered, thorough, comprehensive list of atrocities. Sera will check, but she already knows what she'll find.

She'll find a monster.

Maybe it's one of his scribes, she thinks. It's got that puckered-arse tidiness about it.

But the end of the missive changes her mind. No scribe would ever say this:

###

Lastly, if you would be so kind? One of my friends nearly got stabbed last week when a drunken merchant's assistant pulled a dagger. If you would be willing, please relieve the local hotheads of their weapons. Put them in a barrel somewhere, whatever you like.

Thank you for your service,

A Friend

###

This friend is weird, Sera decides.

Good info, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is very brief because it's already farfarfar too hot, but I shall definitely return to Sera. She's so much fun.


	5. Emma

"Is that all, Emma?" asked Lady Josephine. It had been a long meeting, but a fun one - we both enjoyed knowing how much Skyhold was being sneakily improved.

"Ah, one more thing."

I fiddled my papers around for a minute. "We need to fire Cook."

Lady J's face was remarkable. "Pardon?"

"The data's pretty clear," I said apologetically. "She's the causative agent, or at least a catalyst, in at least" - I flicked through my mental notes - "fifteen morale-reducing events per day. Mostly the kitchen staff, but Georges the poultry man is starting to need five minutes to steel himself before he delivers the eggs." I detailed the patterns: the noticable reduction in minor cuts and bumps during the breakfast shift, the knock-on effects of arguments and stress, the alcohol consumption - high even by the standards of most kitchens.

She made a _hmm_ noise. "Can it be handled another way?"

I shook my head. "At Cole's request I made a stupendously elaborate amusement involving mint and one of the mousers. The effects only lasted a day and a half, then she was back to her normal bullying and snapping."

She thought for a minute; brow adorably furrowed. "Very well. But not until after Satinalia."

I nodded. "I'll need another two royals in my budget then."

"Why so?"

"Mint's surprisingly pricy, this time of year."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hee


	6. Baba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is my 40th birthday and I was given a gift by the perniciously talented [Paradigm_F](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradigm_F/pseuds/Paradigm_F). I was asked for a prompt; #teamcrone, I said. (It seemed appropriate for my 40th, no?)
> 
> This is what I unwrapped.

Come, sweetling, come and sit by the fire, old Baba scarcely gets visitors these days. Here, rest from the whispers — it is silent here, only my faithful servants, three sets of hands with no owner to claim them, and three riders, but those have little to say that you don’t already know. Little to fear from the water, either, living or dead, nothing to drag you under, though the rusalka might sing you a sweet lullaby, dragonflies like jewels in the noon shimmer.

Let me take a look at you, krasavitsa. Let me take a look at you, beyond the skin you wear, beyond the three sets of iron shoes you scraped to holes, and the three loaves of iron bread you gnawed on your way, and the three walking sticks, iron the lot of them, that you ground down to the delicate filigree of a wand or a flute. Those won’t give you what you seek, but one must carry something, and why not carry a burden unliftable, if you’re to carry anything at all? For when time wears them to nothing — as time always does — will not the lightness be sweetest?

Burdens you carry, and burdens you left, lightest of them saplings, not far from the tree, delicate like gossamer thread. Dark and sturdy it weaves, a trail behind you, and strongest you are for the door that closes in your wake, and the road that stretches ahead of you. Bring me a mirror, and bring me an egg that rolls and rolls around the plate, painting a future in its circumference — yours, I wonder?

Ah, but you share, sweetling, and those touched by the flame you carry have no place among my skulls, for their light bears no outshining. And gifts are a dangerous thing. Mind the debt, it accrues like crows on a fence — one, then two, then many.

Wisdom comes to you with his hands outstretched, but you fill them with nothing but golden thread, and send him off to unspool himself until he remembers the simplicity of the weave. Solicitude comes to you, when his shadows grow deeper, but you fill his palms with the light that cast them. Duty comes to you, with his head turned in the other direction, for that is what duty is — always over the horizon, that one — but you pour into his canteen the sweetest of meads, for duty forgets that laughter fills all chalices, even his. And Sacrifice comes to you, with nothing to give but his own hollow hands, and you fold them together and make him see the space between them. But what of you, sweetling?

What can old Baba give you that you do not already have?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have very awesome friends.


	7. Dorian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The base rules for the game Professor are thus:  
> 1\. Each player in turn is asked questions by the Professor, which they must answer incorrectly.  
> 2\. All players must keep a straight face.  
> 3\. Whenever there have been five rounds without anyone being eliminated, all players take a drink.

I do not understand Bull.

First there were the… well, yes. Frankly impossible and utterly outrageous, clearly. But he said them so sincerely! Not that I would. Surely not. No. But it was  _ most  _ unexpected.

And now he has dragged me past all the… ugh… pig-related activities, to this small provincial attempt at a stage.

“You play Professor on Feastday back home, right?” he asks. And he looks  _ hopeful  _ about it. Clearly some of the locals know how to play, but I cannot shrug off the idea that he has set this up.

For me? 

_ Why? _

***

Really, this is getting increasingly ridiculous.

We’ve gone through - a dozen? yes, that’s correct - a dozen other players and now this one is…

She’s a smith. Almost unfairly so, like a bad troubadour’s invention. Soot in her knuckles and bulging forearms, the whole thing. And by the Divine’s curly beard, she  _ plays  _ like one, too.

Pounds out answers like horseshoes. Drinks her beer the same. Bang, bang, bang. I’m starting to get a headache. A genuine headache, just from the rhythm.

And beyond her Bull is looking at me and smiling and I’m sure I could work this out, I am at that grand stage of inebriation when things start to make just a little sense, I could work this out if the smith didn’t keep pounding out answers like a water hammer, I’m close to figuring out what this infuriating creature wants if only for this…

“Monotony.” I didn’t actually intend to say it but it popped out. I’ve said these southerners are deaf to nuance but clearly I am wrong because there’s a sudden rather awful silence and the smith’s cheeks turn blotchy.

Damn.

The Professor - one of the Nightingale’s little birds - calls for a drink round shortly thereafter and I apologise for the accidental insult and she accepts the apology. And really that  _ ought  _ to be the end of it, except…

Except I’d thought her colourless before. In comparison to now she’d been damn near vivacious.

And Bull keeps is looking at me like I kicked a puppy. Twice. Down steep stairs.

Vishante kaffas, I don’t deserve this.

Everyone knows how this game is played, after all. Covert insults are one of the simplest strategies. Certainly the first I ever learnt.

But…

We’ve had fourteen players in all thus far. Me, being my witty usual self. Bull, being confusing but genial. Let’s see, there were the three mages, one the kind who simply cannot help themselves from showing that they know the correct answer. That rather amusing fellow with the jug ears who answered every question with a euphemism for breasts. The giggler. Her, her, and him…

Every player has used a different strategy. Not one has chosen insults.

But  _ everyone  _ uses those in this game.

Don’t they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worked on this for much longer than I ought to - the point with these bonuses is not to overthink them! - and I still think it needs more polishing. Writing in a different voice AND a different tense is tricksy.
> 
> My original mental drafts had Emma in here; it worked infinitely better when I took her out. It strained my internal sense of credulity less to have her not involved - both in terms of her day already being crazy busy, and in letting Dorian have growth moments away from her. 
> 
> Anyway. Tricky but fun.


End file.
